The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has issued a report demanding the immediate reinstatement of broadcasting licenses for 17 media outlets in Nangarhar province.
The organization asserts that the Taliban must cease their pressure on media and their control over programming, allowing independent media to operate freely.
“Taliban authorities must immediately reverse their decision to suspend the broadcasting licenses of 17 active media outlets in Nangarhar province, which reach millions of people,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator, Beh Lih Yi. “The Taliban continue to exert pressure on media to control programming and broadcasting operations in Afghanistan. They must stop this practice and allow independent media to operate freely.”
Previously, the Afghanistan Journalists Center reported that the Taliban’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology suspended the licenses of 17 local media outlets in Nangarhar for not paying frequency license fees.
The journalists’ advocacy group stated on Monday, August 5, that the Taliban warned these media outlets that they would not be allowed to operate until they paid their taxes.
According to sources cited by the Afghanistan Journalists Center, the Afghanistan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ATRA) communicated the suspension of frequency licenses to the owners of private radio and television stations in Nangarhar both verbally and in writing.
